Tuesday, 8 March 2011

The 'Faith Industry'Again..... Post number 750.

A suggestion I made while commenting on a Nth American Blog recently, has drawn out four enquiries in reply to my post going back a bit regarding what I refer to as The Faith Industry. In the most simple terms possible The Faith Industry Is the Whole cock and boodle of every conceivable religious concept ever known and those which exist in the present time. The fear of retribution and an afterlife of torment is the main armament of these religious factions, Making a living from the gullible is the driving force. Most outspoken followers are either publicity seekers, dogmatic unintelligent persons unable to focus on reality,plus most of the minor followers being those of below average brain cell activity. Want more?

Google.... dailygaggle.com What the Faith industry do not want you to know. Dec 8 2007
This is in seven very interesting parts, you may copy all which you can read later at your leisure.

To strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare of mankind - this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for.

Chosen by Time magazine to be their 'Person of the Century',1 Albert Einstein2 is famous for many things (apart from his shaggy visage). His theories of special and general relativity and his formula for the equivalence of mass and energy, E = mc2, changed forever our views on time and space, light and gravity, matter and energy. He is somewhat less well-known for his remark 'God does not play dice with the universe.'

But what did Einstein really mean by 'God'? Was his 'God' anything like the God of the Bible?

Childhood influencesAlthough born in 1879 of German-Jewish parents, Albert was not brought up in the Jewish faith. He attended a nearby Catholic elementary school in Munich and then the local high school. A rather slow and dreamy student, Albert was bored with non-scientific subjects,3 and learned little under the harsh military-style 19th century German education system.

He grew up with an aversion to discipline, and a life-long suspicion of all authority.

At age 11 he went through an intense religious phase during which he ate no pork and composed songs to God, which he sang to himself on the way to school.4

From age 12 Albert read popular books on science, taught himself algebra, geometry and calculus, and studied Immanuel Kant's anti-theistic Critique of Pure Reason.

Concerning this time in his life, Albert later wrote, 'Through the reading of popularscientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.

The consequence was a positively fanatic (orgy of) [sic] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. …

It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of … an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings.'4

Albert fell in love with Mileva Maric, a Hungarian and the only woman student in his class who, though rather plain, afflicted with a limp, and not in the least flirtatious, knew enough physics to be able to have intelligent conversations with him.

In 1901 he fathered an illegitimate child with her. He married Mileva in 1903, after he had secured a job as patent examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Berne.6

In 1916 Albert published 'The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity'. This was based on more 'thought experiments' that gravity and acceleration produce identical effects, and that this is a consequence of gravity warping (distorting) both space and time. Scientists were both bedazzled and bewildered.

Albert and Mileva's marriage had gradually fallen apart and in 1914 they had separated.

In 1918, divorce proceedings were set in motion, based on the adultery of Albert with his divorced cousin Elsa Löwenthal,10 who had cared for him during a period of illness.

The Zurich court granted the divorce on February 14, 1919, and ordered inter alia that Albert should give the monetary reward from a Nobel Prize, if and when he should receive it,11 to Mileva.12

Albert married Elsa on June 2, 1919, but again he was unfaithful.13 He wrote that he admired a deceased friend for having lived for many years in peace and 'lasting harmony with a woman—an undertaking in which I twice failed rather disgracefully.'14

The Nobel PrizeIn 1922 Albert received official news that he had been awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work in theoretical physics and his photoelectric law. Relativity, still highly controversial, was specifically excluded.15

People now wrote to Albert from all over the world; some of his answers revealed his wry sense of humour.

In Berlin, he received a letter from New York asking, 'Would it be reasonable to assume that it is while a person is standing on his head—or rather upside down—that he falls in love or does other foolish things?'

Albert wrote, 'To fall in love is by no means the most stupid thing man does—gravitation cannot be held responsible, however.'16

On another occasion, he was asked his formula for success. He replied, 'If A is success, I should say the formula is A = X + Y + Z, X being work and Y being play.' 'And what is Z?' 'Keeping your mouth shut.'17

Albert and 'the bomb'For most of his life Albert was a gentle pacifist. However, on August 2, 1939, after learning that German scientists were working on splitting the uranium atom, he signed a letter to President F. D. Roosevelt which stated, 'This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs,' and urged 'quick action' on the part of the United States in atomic bomb research.19

The Manhattan Project, which produced the world's first atomic bombs, got under way two years later.

Albert, regarded as a security risk, was excluded from participation in this.20

After the bombs had exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he considered this letter one of his greatest mistakes.

Einstein and 'God'Albert Einstein was not a Christian. He had no concept of the God of the Bible or trust in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. His views on religion and 'God' were evolutionary and pantheistic.

He wrote, 'I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves.

Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.'22

'The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God.

… The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events. …

'During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image. …

The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. … In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God … .'24

Answering a Japanese scholar who asked him about 'scientific truth', Albert wrote, 'Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.

This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as "pantheistic" (Spinoza).'25

It is thus clear that when Albert mentioned 'God', e.g. 'God does not play dice with the universe', and 'The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not',26 he was referring to something like rationality in the universe. He is recorded as saying that a 'deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God'.27 However, he certainly was not referring to anything like the God of the Bible, who is Creator, Lawgiver, Judge and Saviour.

Addressing Princeton Theological Seminary on May 19, 1939, Albert said, '[A] conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible.'25,28

Christian apologist Dr Hugh Ross claims that, despite not believing in the biblical God, 'Einstein held unswervingly, against enormous peer pressure, to belief in a Creator.'29 However, in the normal meaning of these terms, Einstein believed no such thing (see aside below on starlight and time). Thus, Christians who inappropriately invoke Einstein in their preaching, writing or witnessing do so to the detriment of their cause.

Note: As Einstein wrote his scientific papers and most of his correspondence in German, translations used above vary slightly among his biographers.

Albert was born in Ulm, Germany, on March 14, 1879. The family moved to Munich in 1880.

His interest in science stems from age five. His father gave him a compass. 'Why does the needle always point one way?', Albert wanted to know. 'Magnetism.' 'How does an invisible force pass through space?' Albert lay awake that night pondering the mystery. His life-long interest in asking and solving scientific questions had been awakened.

Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule or ETH (the Federal Institute of Technology).

This lasted from June 1902 to July 1909.

Translated titles: 1. On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light. 2. A New Determination of the Size of Molecules. 3. On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid According to the Molecular Theory of Heat. 4. On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.

During a conversation in our club way back, Kate said "Do you like my new dress? I made it myself".Feeling grumpy at the time I replied "Yes I can see you did , You must be very poor". The tears welled in her eyes and I made a hasty apology, I later presented her with my memoirs and we became good friends, (socially).

About Me

Ardent family orientated bloke,love my family lots.
Love Australia my Beautiful adopted country, but remember passionately my home village, Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, England. My favourite friends would include several shipmates I am in close contact with who served with me while in the British Royal Navy ..going back a fair bit.
There is also the silence of my age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it - in words intelligible to those who have not lived-the great range of my life.
Vest.GSM, LSGCM, WM, B/PM, ITM, UNM, K-N M, EOW M, Asia- PAC M. ROYAL NAVY 25yrs, Retired.